Let’s Unite
په دی ښایسته دنیا کې په دی یوه دنیا کې مونږه جدا جدا یو مونږه تنها تنها یو لکه د لاس د ګوتو لکه د لمر د وړانګو زمونږه پښو نه لاندې خاوره هم دا خاوره ده خو مونږه یو تر بله د تورو کاڼو په شان جدا جدا یو سره د زیړو پاڼو په […]
Mother I’ve Been Saved
Main bach gayi maa, main bach gayi maa Tere kachhe lahu ki mehndi mere por por men rach gayi maa Gar mere naqsh ubhar aate, vo phir bhi lahu se bhar jaate Meri aankhen raushan ho jaatin to tezaab ka surma lag jaata Sate-wate men bat jaati, ya kaari men kaam aa jaati Har khwaab adhoora reh jaata Mera qad jo […]
The Grass Is Like Me
گھاس بھی مجھ جیسی ہے پاؤں تلے بچھ کر ہی زندگی کی مراد پاتی ہے مگر یہ بھیگ کر کس بات گواہی بنتی ہے شرمساری کی آنچ کی کہ جذبے کی حدت کی گھاس بھی مجھ جیسی ہے ذرا سر اٹھانے کے قابل ہو تو کاٹنے والی مشین اسے مخمل بنانے کا سودا لیے ہموار […]
Rifat Abbas
Rifat Abbas is a popular poet among Siraiki speakers due to his innovative ideas and his creative use of poetic form. The Kafi was first introduced by the great Siraiki Sufi poet, Khwaja Ghulam Farid (1841-1901) and is a beautiful poetic form that embodies romance along with spirituality. In 2005 Abbas was given the Khawaja […]
Kishwar Naheed
Kishwar Naheed is one of the best known feminist poets of Pakistan. Born in Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh, India in 1940, her family moved to Lahore in Pakistan during the 1947 Partition of the sub-continent. Kishwar had to fight to receive an education at a time when women did not go to school; she studied at […]
Shakir Shujaabadi
Shakir Shujaabadi comes from the small town of Shajaabad in the Siraiki-speaking region of Pakistan. He is one of the most famous poets writing in Siraiki today. Shakir has overcome the difficulties of his physical disabilities to publish many collections of his passionate poetry. He writes poetry in both Siraiki and Urdu. The poems we […]
Noshi Gillani
Noshi Gillani was born in Pakistan in 1964. Her fifth collection of poems: Ay Meeray Shureek-E-Risal-E-Jaan, Hum Tera Intezaar Kurtay Rahey (O My Beloved, I Kept Waiting for You) was published in Pakistan in 2008. The candour and frankness of her highly-charged poems is unusual for a woman writing in Urdu and she has gained […]
Syed Shah Saud
Syed Shah Saud is a talented young Pashto poet, born in Peshawar, the biggest city in the Pashtoon inhabited parts of Pakistan, in 1970. He has done an MA in Philosophy from Peshawar University and teaches literature at Government College Peshawar. Shah Saud is known for his originality of thought and a peculiar style in […]
Zehra Nigah
Zehra Nigah from Pakistan is a highly regarded poet in a culture in which poetry is almost universally popular. In the Urdu tradition she was one of the first women poets to challenge the traditional roles of women. As a child her life was filled with poetry and like Javed Akhtar she uses both traditional […]
Sascha Aurora Akhtar
Sascha Aurora Akhtar originates from Pakistan, and was educated there and in the USA. Her debut poetry collection, The Grimoire of Grimalkin, was published in 2007 and greeted as “a contemporary masterpiece”, with the British newspaper The Guardian naming Akhtar one of the top twelve poets to watch. About her own work, she says: “As […]